We cross the creek several times every day. We get to notice every change, every ebb. It’s such a gift.
We see the creek frozen and slow twist into a creek that swells up over its confines, flooding and raging through the green green forest. We see geese and then their goslings swimming in a spontaneous lake in the middle of the woods.
Tufts of white fluff dance lazy and sparkly from the Cottonwood trees. I can’t get over the fragrance. I think it’s my favorite. Certainly my love is influences by the scent’s transience. It comes and goes so fast, the only way to get it back is to wait a year. And even then, things will be different. The temperature, my age, my lens, the height of the trees and direction of the wind.
Hills around us bust open with balsamroot, penstemmon, lupine, prairie smoke and clematis. Bucks with furry antler stumps look like babies standing in our path. Rusty tails of hawks stamped against the bluest sky float over grass that grows by the daily inch and literally moves with bugs.
And our feet move over the dirt trail, over the bridge, over the creek.
Ruby sits on my bike handlebars and squeals,
Mama! The river is still wachatonheya! Heya heya!
It’s a song she sings with her preschool class. One I’ve loved learning from her. The words seem big and powerful coming from her tiny, powerful body.
I did a little bit of research and discovered it is a Creek water blessing. Ruby sings the first three lines softly like a low, meandering creek. She moves carefully and quietly. She sings the last three forcefully like a high, thunderous creek. She leaps and stomps.
Wichita do ya do ya do ya
Wichita do ya do ya heh
Wichita do ya do ya do ya
Wacha tonaya hey ya hey ya
Wacha tonaya hey ya hey
Wacha tonaya hey ya hey ya
I found a handful of recordings on youtube which have become favorites around here. This one is particular:
I know the creek will move through this phase and into the lazy pace of summer. We will walk across the shallows. The shallows will even become dry and we will walk all the way across the creek. Water will lower and expose rocks that bake hot in the sun before they ice over.
Wichita do ya
I know these things will change and change again. I appreciate the simplicity of this blessing — it celebrates the high and the low. The fast and the slow. The loud and the quiet.
There’s no preferred way; there is only the way it is.
